Overture to the Destiny

Synopsis: A collection of one-shots from all over Valkyrie friends and I are participating in a prompt challenge for Valkyrie Profile at livejournal! If you are interested, please check out my profile.

1: Believe in You

Theme: Shivering Soul in the Darkness

Alicia often wondered if maybe she was just crazy. It would make so much more sense if Silmeria was really a figment of her imagination like everyone insisted. Despite her internal voice's warnings of divine retribution, Alicia had never come across a celestial being, let alone one that meant her harm. She only knew the sting of her father's hand and the threats of her keepers who promised to kill her if she did not stop acting as if she were possessed. All that she could remember was being taken away from her mother and drug to a place where no one was warm. No one... except for Silmeria herself.

Maybe if Silmeria was really just in her head, she could learn to control it, or she could just ignore it. She tried, and it never succeeded. Like always, she found herself huddled in the corner of a cold room where no one would find her talking to the voice in her head, trying to stay warm-trying to confide in Silmeria because real or not, she was the only friend that the young girl had.

Fifteen-year-old Alicia wondered what other girls her age were doing all across Midgard at this moment, while she was talking to herself. She imagined herself dancing at her father's parties with young, eligible nobels. She thought of other girls, and how they might befriend her. They would converse things like their first kiss, who they hoped to marry, and what they would name their children. None of them would tell her to pick up her sword and keep practicing, because one day she would have to defend herself. None of them would ever take over her body and force her to do things when she refused.

But... none of them were here. Silmeria was. All of those people who might have loved her and been her friends had rejected her at the first sign of strangeness. As much as she wished she were normal, she couldn't help but be thankful that Silmeria was with her. For what if she had been mad, but without a voice within? Then she would truly be alone. Silmeria was warm, Silmeria was strong. She was all the things that Alicia could never be.

"What will happen?" Alicia said, huddled in a dark corner. "I mean... I know that the gods will come, but what exactly will happen to us?"

Hrist will come as an agent of Odin, and she will try to kill you in order to release my spirit. Then we must flee.

"Your own sister would strike you down so coldly?" Alicia said this and was amsused by the idea that Silmeria's family had banished her as well.

I have no doubt that she would feel remorse in her heart, but she holds little respect for human life, as fleeting as it is. She believes that what she is doing is to save Midgard. I hope to persuade her, but...

"It isn't very likely... is it?" About as likely as convincing her father that she was worthy of looking at.

No, it is not.

"What will happen to you then? If she kills me, I mean?"

I will be recycled once more, and return to the realm of humans-this time without any memory just as Odin originally planned.

"Oh," Alicia's heart sunk. "I was thinking... maybe if it wasn't too much trouble for you, that you could just let her kill me, but if it means that you won't be able to fight Odin..."

I will never allow that.

"I wouldn't really mind..."

I can't do this without you, Alicia.

"...you can't?"

If I can't save you, then who could I possibly hope to save?

"I guess... I don't know..."

Silmeria had nothing further to say, or perhaps Alicia had for once silenced her. Though the prospect of death seemed almost inviting, she could not sleep for fear of losing herself, of simply ceasing to exist.

"Silmeria?"

A delayed response. Yes, Alicia?

"I have decided... that I'm going to believe in you. At the very least, that you exist and that you're really here with me. I don't know if we can save ourselves, but at least I won't be alone. At least I have you."

...Thank you.